Human rights
DETROIT: BECOME HUMAN
TAKE a pinch of Blade Runner, a large dollop of Ex Machina and stir in a pint or two of IRobot, and you have something approaching Detroit: Become Human.
Developer Quantic Dream is nothing if not ambitious.
Under the watchful eye of studio head David Cage, the developer has released a succession of titles which have attempted to blur the lines between console game and cinematic experience such as the beautiful, if deeply flawed, Heavy Rain.
For Detroit, David has taken inspiration from his 2012 short film Kara, to create a neo-noir thriller that explores humanity’s relationship with the androids it has become reliant on.
It’s a deep, philosophical debate – and some might argue, a debate of growing importance – as technology advances to a point were one day soon, the Amazon Echo in your living room will be a walking, talking, physical presence in your home.
Whether this is the right format to tackle the issues of civil rights, slavery and the crushing of the oppressed is another discussion.
Set in 2038, Detroit has become the hub of America’s booming robotics industry.
The story revolves around three androids – Kara, who sets out to explore her newfound sentience; Connor, whose job it is to hunt down sentient androids; and Markus, who devotes himself to releasing other androids from servitude.
The human-like androids have replaced people in most jobs, they’re our gardeners, nurses, teachers, street cleaners and babysitters.
But while they have been built to serve us, they have zero rights, are segregated from the human population and treated as property.
Detroit therefore is a powder keg of simmering tension and when androids start to break their programming and act under their own free will, the ‘deviants’ are hunted down and destroyed.
Like a growing number of games these days, the choices you make as you play through the story, dictate not just the fate of the characters, but the tone of their stories and their interactions.
Gameplay hasn’t changed much from previous Quantic Dream titles. Action sequences are triggered through timed button presses and thumbstick wiggles.
While playing as Connor, you can trigger detective mode. This allows you to scan the environment for forensic clues and you can fastforward and rewind timelines to reconstruct crimes.
Another new feature is the ability to ‘pre-construct’ scenarios before you play them through, a lot of fun which was criminally underused.
Fight sequences were not at all challenging – and I get that making them so would break the sense of narrative that Quantic is going for here, but it would have been nice to just once or twice feel the tension of high stakes battle.
Graphically, this is one of the best-looking games I have ever seen on the PS4.
Bright neon cityscapes sit in stark contrast to dark, eerie basements stuffed to the gills with discarded androids.
The level of detail and emotional range conveyed in the character’s faces is astonishing and at times you genuinely forget you are watching a game – especially when Clancy Brown’s grizzled Detective Hank Anderson swoops in an steals the scene.
The script flips between clumsy and ham-fisted, at times blatantly attempting to channel Martin Luther King in the name of entertainment - something which left me feeling incredibly uncomfortable. Cage and Quantic Dream has set out to create a lofty and ambitious cinematic experience, and while graphically they are closer to that than ever before, it is let down by its sledgehammer approach to affecting topics.
As flawed as it is though, Detroit: Become Human is still a bold and accomplished experience, and one you shouldn’t deny yourself.
BUY IT: £47.99 at smythstoys. com or play The Hostage demo as a free download available at playstation.com/en-gb/games/ detroit-ps4/